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Sunday, 6 September 2015

Arrears to be paid
in 4 half-yearly instalments; veterans want premature retirees included

KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September
5

The Centre’s
decision today to fulfil ex-servicemen’s long-pending demand for one rank, one
pension (OROP) received a less than enthusiastic acceptance from veterans who
refused to end their agitation over disputing aspects, including exclusion of
premature retirees.

Conceding to the
nearly four-decade parity claim, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar emphasised:
"Despite the huge financial burden, given its commitment to the welfare of
ex-servicemen, the government has taken a decision to implement the
OROP....Prime Minister Modi has fulfilled his commitment and approved OROP for
Armed Forces personnel. The Ministry of Defence will soon issue a detailed
government order.”

The government’s
decision to roll out the welfare measure from July 1, 2014, with 2013 as the
base year for fixing the first pension under it was greeted by the
ex-servicemen as a satisfactory step but put question marks on six other
elements of the scheme. Having expressed unhappiness over elements of the
scheme, the ex-servicemen met the Defence Minister later this evening and
returned satisfied after the government expressed intention to revisit the
exclusion clause. As for the continuation of the form of protest, the decision
would be taken tomorrow. Earlier, Major General Satbir Singh (retired) of the
Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement had said at Jantar Mantar where veterans are
holding protests and hunger strikes for the past 80 days: “The government
accepted just one of our demands and rejected six.” The agitation should
continue was the prevailing mood.

The Defence Minister
said the annual expenditure for OROP would be between Rs 8,000 crore and Rs
10,000 crore; pension will be re-fixed for all retiring on the same rank and
with the same length of service as the average of minimum and maximum pension
in 2013. Those drawing pensions above the average will be protected, he
emphasised. The arrears bill, estimated to be between Rs 10,000 crore and Rs
12,000 crore, will be paid in four half-yearly instalments but all widows will
get the arrears in one instalment; in future, the pension would be re-fixed
every five years and personnel who voluntarily retire will not be covered under
the OROP, he said adding that those who opted out due to injuries would be
protected.

The Minister said
since OROP was a complex issue, a thorough examination of interests of retirees
of different periods and different ranks was needed. The inter-service issues
of the three Forces also require consideration. This is not an administrative
matter alone. Therefore, it has also been decided that a one-member judicial
committee would be constituted that would give its report in six months.

Since 46 per cent
personnel opt for premature retirement, the ex-servicemen want clarification on
their exclusion; expressed disappointment over announcement of single-member
judicial commission demanding it be expanded to five with three of the
fraternity as members and reduction in report timeline from six months to one;
and rejected five-year pension review insisting it be done every two years.

The ruling BJP and
the opposition Congress began to spar, with BJP chief Amit Shah accusing the
Congress of having reduced ex-servicemen pension in 1973 from 70 per cent to 50
per cent of the salary. "The demand for OROP has been hanging fire
since...the previous Congress government in its last moments made an allocation
of Rs 500 crore for it and this was a joke,” he said.

The Congress fielded
former Defence Minister AK Antony who characterised key component of OROP as “betrayal”
to the cause of ex-servicemen, accused the government of doing politics over
the scheme and "substantially diluting" its provisions.

The government is
likely to come out with a "clarification" on the applicability of the
one rank, one pension (OROP) to those who opted for premature retirement.

Ex-servicemen said
this after meeting Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday night, hours
after the government announced the implementation of the scheme that was
rejected by veterans on account of five-year revision of pension and whether it
would cover those who took pre-mature retirement.

Major General Satbir
Singh (retd) said he was "satisfied" with Parrikar’s statement.
“…There are other issues that are yet to be addressed but the major one is
premature retirement (PMR) that unnecessarily got put in. It was not required
to be part of the note. We do not know how it cropped up," he said.

Major General Singh,
who earlier refused to budge till all demands were met, also hinted at a
rethink on whether to continue with the protest. "We will take a decision
on the agitation after talking to the core group tomorrow morning. For now, the
clarification has been taken from the Defence Minister. If the voluntary
retirement scheme is not applicable to the armed forces, there is no question
of retrospective," he said.

In the afternoon,
ex-servicemen welcomed the Defence Minister’s announcement of implementing the
OROP saying they disagreed on excluding prematurely retired ex-servicemen from
the scheme, five-year equalisation of pension and one-man judicial commission.
Major General Singh said when defence officers and soldiers take pre-mature
retirement and get pension, why they should not be given OROP.

“According to the service rule,
an officer can take premature retirement after serving the force for 20 years
and a jawan for 15 years and thereafter is entitled to pension benefit,” he
said. On the government’s decision to equalise pension after every five years,
ex-servicemen said it should be reduced to one year. “If the government is
short of funds, it can be reduced to two years,” he said.

On this, the government
announced to constitute a one-member judicial commission under a retired judge
that would submit its report in six months, which was again not accepted by
ex-servicemen.

Major General Singh said the
committee should comprise five members — three ex-servicemen, one serving
defence officer and one member of the Defence Ministry. “The committee should
be under the Defence Ministry and the time to submit the report should be just
one month,” he said.

4 Brar brothers and
their brother-in-law were on duty during the war. Fifty years after losing
youngest member, their tribute to Flying Officer Jagdev Brar

My 22-year-old
brother Jaggi (Flying Officer Jagdev Singh Brar) flew over Sargodha (Pakistan)
on September 7, 1965, in a sortie that took off from Halwara (near Ludhiana).
He, along with four other Hunter pilots, successfully bombed the target. On
their way back, Jaggi (nicknamed Small Ben in the squadron) along with Squadron
Leader Bhagwati peeled off from the formation to engage the pursuing enemy
fighter aircraft.

Unconfirmed news
reports said that Jaggi’s aircraft was probably hit in a midair dogfight with a
Pakistani fighter aircraft. There were also unconfirmed reports of his bailout.
He was then officially declared as “Missing in Action”. He never came back.

In September, 1965,
my eldest brother was the Superintendent of Police at Amritsar. Another brother
was serving as Captain in 1 Dogra in the thick of battle somewhere between
Amritsar and Lahore. My brother-in-law was serving as a Major and I was a
Captain at that time. My father (Ajaib Singh Brar) and mother (Balwant Kaur)
were having a tough time with four sons and the son-in-law in uniform on
national duty.

In mid-1965, while
on leave, I rode my elder brother’s Royal Enfield Bullet from Jalandhar to
Halwara to meet Jaggi. I waited for almost half an hour before I saw Jaggi,
fully drenched in sweat with a badminton racket in hand. He was a good
badminton player. He also liked tennis and table tennis. He was beaming from
ear to ear when we embraced. We exchanged family news and chatted while taking
tea. I left after this brief meeting, least realising that this would be the
last time we were meeting.

Our family took the
loss of Jaggi in its stride without asking the government for any special
compensation or favours, though it was not difficult to do so at that time.

We still remember
Jaggi fondly. Well-behaved and pleasant, he was the darling of the Brar clan
and popular among his colleagues in the Air Force too. Air Marshal Inamdar (his
course-mate of 1963) is still in touch with the family and misses him as a dear
friend, like many others. Perhaps people like Jaggi are also in great demand in
heaven!

Fifty years after
that fateful day of September 7, we miss Jaggi dearly and wonder if he
straightaway bailed out to heaven from his Hunter aircraft that day.

We lost Jaggi in
1965, but he lives on in our hearts. There are many other Jaggis who are lost
by the country while servingwith
dedication, but their dying wish and message to the nation would be: “Look
after my family after me.”

I joined the Army at
the young age of 19. I was just F.Sc pass (I got a law degree after my Army
career).

After initial
training for a few months, I was straightaway inducted in the warfront of
Chhamb-Jaurian-Akhnoor. It was the hottest warfront till September 6, 1965 —
when the Lahore and Sialkot sectors were opened and the major component of
enemy forces was withdrawn from Akhnoor sector and redeployed there.

The Pakistani troops
outnumbered us by four times in the Akhnoor sector and I consider myself lucky
to have fought against the enemy in my AMX light tank of 20 Lancers.

On August
31-September 1, when our three tanks were on way to Chhamb-Jaurian, we had to
face heavy air-straffing and the camouflage net of the tank caught fire. My
possessions got burnt. In spite of heavy fire, we moved on and reached the
destination with the tanks intact.

Capt Shankar
Roychowdhury (later to become Army Chief) and Maj Bhaskar Roy were leading the
squadron. It steadfastly held the positions and that is how we earned the
nickname: “Saviours of Akhnoor.”

Incidentally, I and
my two brotherswere deployed in the
same front. I was in Armoured, while my brothers were in Artillery and
Ordnance.

After September 6, I
was ordered to move as a troop commander to Samba sector under the command of
Col Hussain of 9 Grenadiers. I stepped out of the tank and injured my knee but
that didn’t stop me from staying on in the battlefront. On September 23, the
ceasefire was ordered.

I hung up my uniform
in 1974, resumed my studies and now practise in the Punjab and Haryana High
Court. Serving the nation remains the most abiding memory. It was an honour to
have been given the chance.

Pak paratroopers,
Halwara, blackout

Covering war: Recalling
events that stood out

KS Chawla

On September 4,
1965, I accompanied a wedding party of a dear friend to Kotkapura in Faridkot
district and the next day, while returning to Ludhiana, we saw military convoys
moving towards the Ferozepur side. As we reached Ludhiana in the evening, there
was a blackout. Pakistani bombers had made their first sorties over the Halwara
airport.

The Pakistani planes
dropped some paratroopers near the Halwara Air Force station, but they missed
the intended landing target. They fell in the sugarcane fields and a teenager
who was grazing cattle immediately pounced upon one of them and hit him with a
bucket. He eventually died.

A media team from
Ludhiana left for the villages around the Halwara Air Force station and had to
take shelter in trenches dug up along the road, when the air raid sirens would
go off,before reaching Rajoana village,
whose residents had nabbed the paratroopers.

In all, 18
paratroopers were caught by the villagers and the police, on patrol duty in the
area under the supervision of Harjeet Singh Ahluwalia, the district police
chief of Ludhiana. All the paratroopers were taken to the Jagraon police
station and we met some of them in the lock-up. They had brand new parachutes
and weapons with the marking of “made in USA”.

The target of the
paratroopers was the Indian Oil Corporation depot from where the Halwara
station planes were getting fuel. This oil depot was later targeted during
militancy and the IOC had to shut it.

Pakistani bombers
made a number of sorties over the Halwara air base but could not cause any harm
because of the alertness of the Indian Air Force. The Pakistanis even dropped
napalm bombs which fell in the periphery of the air base. At Sudhar village, a
huge crater was caused by one such bomb.

Ludhiana had an
ammunition depot of the Army then, but there was no air defence. Col Sewa Ram,
who was from the air defence unit, was deputed to install anti-aircraft guns
near Sherpur Chowk. A trial was conducted one night and as the guns went off,
panic spread in Ludhiana that the town had been attacked. The police had to
work very hard to convince the residents to return home and sleep.

The Halwara air base
was fully strengthened when the 1971 war broke out.

During both the
wars, there was a lot of enthusiasm among the residents to serve the Army
personnel passing through special trains at the Ludhiana railway station. Huge
canteens were set up at the railway station to serve the Armymen.

Describing ‘one
rank, one pension’ scheme announced by the government as a diluted form of UPA’s
February 2014 proposal, the Congress today said the announcement was a betrayal
of ex servicemen and was hugely disappointing.

“The OROP announced today is a
great disappointment. It is substantially diluted from what we had approved in
February last. We had approved the scheme for all ex-servicemen, including
those who retire early. As many as 46% of the ex-servicemen retire prematurely.
NDA’s scheme ignores all of them,” former Defence Minister and Congress leader
AK Antony said today.

Antony said out of 13 lakh armed
forces personnel, only about 1,000 retired at 60 years. “We had made no
exceptions in our scheme. But the BJP has made exceptions besides playing
politics on the issue by saying that the UPA gave only Rs 500 crore for the
scheme. That was an interim budget provision,” said Antony.

The Congress backed the plan of
veterans to continue their agitation questioning the provisions of equalisation
every five years and those of constituting a one-man commission to look into
the issue.

“The UPA had sorted out the
equalisation issue. We had said personnel of same ranks retiring after same
length of service will get the same pension irrespective of the year of
retirement. Now they are proposing equalisation after every five years which we
reject,” said former minister Kapil Sibal accusing the BJP of betraying the
ex-servicemen. Ours was an automatic equalisation route, Sibal added.

The Centre’s
announcement to implement the much-awaited OROP formula for the armed forces
has received a mixed reaction from the veteran community.

While the decision
to adopt OROP has been hailed across the board, many veterans were of the
opinion that their demands had not been fully met and there still were several
lacunae left to sort out.

“The announcement is whole
heartedly welcome and some of the decisions like paying arrears to widows in a
single installment are highly appreciable,” Brig KS Kahlon (retd), president of
the All-India Defence Brotherhood said. “However, issues like not granting OROP
to voluntary retirees and fixing the revised pension on the average of the
minimum and maximum of the pay band definitely need a rethink,” he added.

“Reviewing the pension after
fives years is a dilution of the very concept of OROP, besides a lot of riders
and conditions being attached to the implementation of the concept,” said Sqdn
Leader Mohinder Singh Virk. “There also seem to be some incorrect calculations
in working out the financial implications as from next year onwards, the
financial liability is stated to be just Rs 79-80 crore. It would be definitely
easy for the government to increase a little amount each year instead of
effecting a hefty increase after five years, which in any case they are bound
to do,” he said.

Premature retirees being left
out of the ambit of OROP is the biggest sore point with the veterans. Over 40
percent of servicemen opt for premature retirement due to various personal or
service reasons. “I feel premature retirees should definitely be included in
OROP. It is not that they would have served till 60 years had they not sought
early release. I am sure the Defence Minister would iron out this anomaly in
due course,” Maj Navdeep Singh, a High Court lawyer dealing with service and
pensionary matters and member of the Commission convened by the government to
minimise litigation against defence personnel and veterans by the MoD, said.

Wholeheartedly hailing the
decision to implement OROP, the All-India Ex-servicemen Welfare Association
here urged the veterans to accept the formula announced by the government
which, it claimed, was beneficial for all the old pensioners. “We should gladly
accept whatever is given and continued our struggle to gain more and more. The
association will further take up the points with the government as well as the
commission formed for the remaining demands if any pertaining to OROP,” a
statement issued by the association said.

Congress Deputy
Leader in the Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh today said the belated
announcement of one rank, one pension by the NDA government was “only a
half-hearted attempt”.

He supported the
reservations expressed by the ex-servicemen about the decision, saying if the
government’s intentions were sincere it should have addressed the issue
reasonably while taking into consideration the genuine demands of the veterans.

Capt Amarinder
questioned the logic behind denying OROP to those who seek voluntary retirement.
“This is the most unreasonable clause,” he remarked, asking, “Why deny someone
the OROP benefit when he is already eligible for the pension?”

The former CM also
supported the veterans’ demand for expanding the strength of the one-man
judicial commission, appointed for removing anomalies in the OROP, to five with
three veterans as its members. He observed otherwise it appeared to be an
attempt at delaying the matters.

A soldier was
injured as the Pakistan army twice violated the truce deal by firing on forward
posts in the Hamirpur and Krishna Ghati (KG) sectors along the Line of Control
(LoC) in Poonch district on the intervening night of September 4 and 5.

“There were unprovoked ceasefire
violations by Pakistan soldiers along the LoC in the Hamirpur sector. Forward
areas witnessed unprovoked firing by the Pakistan army between 9.50 pm and
10.15 pm,” said a Defence spokesperson.

They opened fire in the KG
sector around 7.45 am in which a soldier sustained minor stone splinter injury,
he added. At both places, the Pakistan army opened Pika gunfire. “We responded
in equal measure,” he added.

The injured soldier has been
identified as Sepoy Parvinder Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment. However, an
intelligence source said the incident happened around 8.30 am today when Sepoy
Parvinder Singh sustained the injury after troops of 655 Mujahid Regiment
opened fire. He was evacuated to 425 Military Hospital in Poonch.

With two violations, the number
of such violations has gone up to six in September.

Nine civilians and two BSF
personnel were killed and nearly 40 others injured in intense firing and
shelling by Pakistani troops on the LoC and the international border in August.

There have been 59 violations of
the truce deal by Pakistan in August and over 262 ceasefire violations in the
year so far.

BSF looks forward to DG-level
talks with Pak

Jammu: Despite a spike in truce
violations and incidents of sniper fire along the international border and LoC,
the BSF eagerly looks forward to DG-level talks with Pak Rangers in the larger
interest of peace for the border populace. While issues of the entire western
border with Pakistan will come under discussion, repeated violation of ceasefire
agreement, sniper fire and shelling of border villages by Pakistan and frequent
infiltration attempts by terrorists are likely to be high on the Indian agenda.
After the NSA-level talks on August 23 between two nuke rivals, the DG-level
talks are scheduled to be held in New Delhi from September 9 to 13. TNS

Two former Army
chiefs sound note of caution over various OROP provisions

Former Army chief
General Deepak Kapoor termed the announcement as a "substantial step"
taken by the Narendra Modi government but said other issues which were worrying
the veterans are a "cause of concern".

"The Modi
government has taken a substantial step in terms of finally declaring OROP. In
principal, accepting this entire concept, they have to be lauded.

"But a number
of other issues which are worrying the veterans are a cause of concern. It
would have been better if those issues too could have been addressed. For the
sources to say that about 98 per cent of aspirations have been met, may not be
fully correct," he said.

Ex-servicemen,
pressing for OROP for nearly four decades, today won a partial victory with the
government announcing that it would implement it.

Defence minister
Manohar Parrikar said OROP, that implies uniform pension for armed forces
personnel retiring in the same rank with a same length of service, would be
implemented from July 1, 2014 on the basis of calendar year 2013.

Gen (retd) Malik
noted that earlier the government was offering the base year as 2006 and there
were other conditions which were not acceptable to ex-servicemen and said that
he had hoped that the dispute will be resolved "amicably and gracefully"
by both sides and there would be peace.

"Unfortunately,
I do not agree with the kind of methodology which has been adopted in
announcing this and the manner in which it has been announced, there is a lack
of clarity and transparency which should have been avoided," he said.

Malik said it
"intrigues" him as to why premature retirees have not been included
in the OROP.

"The first
thing which really intrigues me is the premature retirees not being in OROP.
Officer start retiring after 20 years and most of them take premature
retirement when they realise that they are unable to go up in the armed forces.

"If they have
already finished their pensionable service, why should not they be in the ambit
of OROP?" he asked.

Malik also
questioned the logic behind the defence minister's meeting with ex-servicemen
yesterday when the announcement was made through a "script".

"Yesterday
there was a leak from defence ministry and even I knew what government was
going to offer. After that the defence minister called the people who were on
agitation to his office.

"He heard them
and yet when the announcement was made, it was read out from a script which
probably might have been prepared two days earlier. Where was the need to call
these people hear them and yet do nothing about it," Malik said.

The retired general said
that the demand for OROP had been accepted by all political parties, Parliament
and the present government has announced it over and over again and there was a
hope that the agitation on the street will stop.

"But that has
not happened. The methodology that has been adopted could have been much more
better. It could have inspired much more trust between each other. A
clarification should have been given. That has been missing," he said.

Malik also did not
agree with the government's announcement of setting up a one man judicial
commission to look into the issue.

"I do not agree
with one man commission. We must have a proper commission or a committee in
which you have experienced people who have served in the Army.

"Otherwise, as
I said this elementary question of premature retirement it is totally
alimentary. We do not want such mistake to occur. Not one man commission but a
4-5 man commission in which you have representative from armed forces," he
said.

Creating a unique
history of valour and dedication to duty, one of the Special Forces Commandos
of the Indian Army, Lance Naik Mohan Nath Goswami, killed ten terrorists in a
short span of 11 days before making supreme sacrifice in continued fight
against terror in Kashmir Valley on Thursday.

Lance Naik Goswami
was killed at Hafruda forests in Kupwara district in fierce fire fight with
terrorists, but not before the elimination of four of them. “A true soldier, he
breathed his last in action,’’ said a defence ministry spokesperson Colonel S D
Goswami at the Northern Command headquarters in Udhampur. Hailing from Indira
Nagar village in Haldwani tehsil of Nainital, he is survived by his wife and a
seven-year-old daughter.

Part of numerous
successful counter terrorist operations in the state, Lance Naik Goswami had
been actively involved in three such operations in which ten terrorists were
killed and one captured alive in the last 11 days.

Giving details, the
spokesperson said that in the first operation, three Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists
hailing from Pakistan were killed in Khurmur, Handwara on August 23.

He again volunteered
for a second back-to-back operation in which three more Lashkar terrorists were
killed and another Sajjad Ahmad alias Abu Ubed Ullah captured alive during the
two day-long fierce fire fight in Rafiabad after a fierce fire fight on August
26-27. The apprehension of Sajjad Ahmad alias Abu Ubed Ullah, a resident of
Muzzafargarh, proved to be a shot in the arm to establish Pakistan’s complicity
in abetting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the defence ministry spokesperson
said.

Lance Naik Goswami,
once again, volunteered to be part of an ongoing operation launched in the
dense Hafruda forest near Kupwara, Kashmir. This proved to be his last
operation but not before elimination of four terrorists in a heavy gun battle,
the spokesperson pointed out.

He had volunteers to
join Indian Army’s elite para commandos unit in 2002 and “went on to gain the
reputation of being one of the toughest soldiers of his unit, no small feat in
an outfit that boasts of being one among the best in the world’’, the
spokesperson said. His mortal remains were flown by an IAF aircraft to
Bareilly, from where they will be taken by an Army helicopter to Pant Nagar and
onward to his native place where he will be cremated with full military
honours, he added.